How can a Computer Science student achieve the same level of knowledge of Statistics as that of a Statistics graduate?

This is one of those questions that I am getting asked on a regular basis. When I saw this in my Inbox mailed to me by Quora, I knew it’s time to step up and speak out 🙂

In fact, that’s a very easy question that has a straightforward answer. Of course, the answer has to be generic, because there is no way to give a specific answer addressed to an abstract “Computer Science student”.

Anyways:

In order to achieve the same level of knowledge in statistics as a statistics graduate, you have to put in the same total effort to learn statistics as a statistician does. There’s no shortcut.

The same principle is valid the other way around. If a mathematics and statistics graduate like myself would like to learn to code as good or better than CS students, I could only achieve this by spending a lot of time improving my coding skills.

However, in case if you are already familiar with machine learning, then you have already made substantial efforts in the area and you are definitely not a beginner.

If you continue learning and reading about those areas of statistics that are relevant to your work, you will keep getting better and there will be no limit to your improvement.